Mourning Ruby by Helen Dunmore

her, don’t touch her, don’t touch her,’ said Adam. She arched again as if the road was shocking her. Then she went still. She went small. Adam had his mouth over her mouth, trying to find her breath.
    There were people pressing round us. I looked up at them from all fours, like a dog. ‘I rang on my mobile,’ said a man. ‘They’re sending an ambulance.’
    ‘He’s a doctor,’ I said. ‘Her father’s a doctor.’
    I could barely see Ruby. I bowed down so my face was almost touching her foot in its dirty trainer. Ruby’s trainers were never dirty like that. I always put them in the washing machine every week. Her pink jeans too, they had stuff all over them. I lay on the road and stroked her ankle inside the thick trainer. Adam was still crouched over Ruby, but he wasn’t breathing into her any more. He had stopped. He wanted me to look after her now. I lifted my head and saw Ruby’s face, shocked sideways and covered in muck. I knew I would have some wipes in my bag. I always carried them, for when Ruby ate ice cream or there wasn’t any paper in public toilets. I would clean her face, and then I’d put her jeans in the washing machine, and her trainers. I would come back and wash the road with a bucket of water and Ruby would help me swoosh it over the gravel. She would like that.
    *
    Barnoon is heaven. We wanted somewhere for Ruby where she would be safe.
    It was possible to open Adam’s grandmother’s grave and put Ruby there with her. Adam wouldn’t have a heavy coffin for Ruby. We didn’t want her to feel locked in. The coffin was made of a special kind of cardboard and it was so light that Adam carried Ruby in his arms, by himself.
    ‘Give her to me a minute,’ I said. I held the box and I could feel Ruby. She was heavy and I had to brace myself to take her weight.
    You’re getting a big girl now, Rubes. You get down now. I can’t carry you any more .

14
    We Are As We Are
After great pain, a formal feeling comes.
The nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs –
    One evening that November Adam was reading a research paper. The room was quiet. I’d lit a candle, which I did every night now, because candles give life to a room. Each night there was a different candle. Sometimes they were fat and stubby, sometimes they were tall and soaring like church candles. The tall ones wound their way down swiftly. I bought scented candles and decorated candles. There was a shop I used to go to in those months, kept by a young woman who had begun her business by making all the candles herself, in her bathroom. She liked to talk about the atmosphere which a particular candle would bring to a room.
    Tonight’s candle was the blue of polar ice. It burned steadily, without a flicker, and was scentless. I watched a gob of wax make its way down the candle stem.
    Adam let his papers fall to the floor. They slithered down off his knee and the movement of the paper disturbed the candle so that its flame fluttered, then stood upright again.
    ‘I can’t make sense of this,’ said Adam. His eyes werewide open, blank. ‘I read it and as soon as I read it I lose it. My memory’s fucked.’
    ‘Can’t you leave it?’
    ‘I could let it go. It’s only one paper. But –’
    ‘But you remember when you’re at work? You remember things at work?’
    Adam’s fists were clenched. He bumped them on the table, very, very gently, very restrained. ‘It’s different at work,’ he said.
    ‘That’s good,’ I said.
    He had split his life in two. In the compartment of work, the lights were still on. It was warm and there were voices and footsteps, comings and goings, even little family jokes of the kind people have when they work together night and day. Minute by minute Adam was there, concentrating, frowning, smiling, changing with every change in the babies, noting every detail of a drug protocol. He didn’t let go. He wouldn’t let go. More and more, work was drawing him in. He was becoming involved in an international